Notion Form Rating Scale: Build a 1 to 5 Question

Nookesh Karri

Notion forms don’t have a rating scale question type, so you build one from a select property. Add a select called Rating with options “1” to “5”, put it on the form as a multiple choice question shown as a list, and mark it required. Then a short formula turns each answer into a number your database can average.

It takes about five minutes and works on every Notion plan.

Does a Notion form have a rating scale question?

A Notion form has no built-in rating scale, star or slider question. In the form builder, the question type is the equivalent of the property type in the database behind the form, and Notion has no rating property to pick.

So any notion form rating scale is really a property you already have, set up to behave like a scale. You have two candidates:

Property	How it looks on the form	Can you average it?
Select with options 1 to 5	Clickable list of options	Yes, with a formula
Number	Empty box where people type	Yes, directly

A number question works, but it rates badly. Nothing stops someone typing 7 on a 1 to 5 scale, and they have to think about the range instead of clicking. A select gives them buttons and keeps every answer in range.

How to add the rating question, step by step

The rating question is a select property set to show its options as a list. In a database called Feedback:

Open the database and add a new property. Choose Select and name it Rating.
Add the options in order. Start every label with its number: “1 - Poor”, “2 - Fair”, “3 - Good”, “4 - Very good”, “5 - Excellent”.
Open the form view and add the Rating property as a question. It appears as a multiple choice question.
In the question’s ••• menu, set Show options as a list view instead of a dropdown, so all five choices are visible at once.
Turn on Required, so nobody can submit without rating.
Edit the question text to say what is being rated, such as “How useful was today’s workshop?”

Preview the form and submit it once. You should get a new row with the chosen label in Rating.

Turn the answers into a number you can average

A formula property converts each select label into a number. Notion’s toNumber function parses a number from text, and when the text starts with digits it keeps only that leading number. That’s why the labels in step 2 begin with the score.

Add a formula property called Score:

toNumber(prop("Rating"))

A row rated “4 - Very good” now shows 4 in Score. At the bottom of the Score column, open the calculation menu and pick Average.

Label an option “Excellent” or “⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐” with no leading number and toNumber returns nothing, so the average comes out blank. Put the digit first and you need no lookup table.

Show the rating as stars or a bar

The Score formula can also drive the display your team sees in the database. One star rating formula repeats a star emoji once per point:

if(empty(prop("Score")), "", repeat("⭐", floor(prop("Score"))))

There’s no half-star emoji, so no half stars. Every individual score is a whole number anyway.

For a bar, format a Number property as a progress bar. Both displays exist only in the database. Respondents still see the plain option labels.

How many points should your rating scale have?

Five points is the safe default for a quick feedback form. Survey guidance says the traditional Likert scale has five options and that 3 points offer little nuance while 7 can be too nuanced.

The harder call is odd or even. An odd scale has a neutral middle. A 2019 study by Leonard Simms at the University at Buffalo, with more than 1,300 participants, found “six appears to be the magic number” and that an even count avoids a fence-sitting middle answer.

Whatever count you pick, label both ends so nobody guesses which way is good: “1 - Poor” and “5 - Excellent”. Keep as many negative options as positive ones. And if you’ll compare results month to month, use the same scale on every form.

Use 5 points for event and product feedback. Use 6 only when you need people to lean one way, like “would you buy this again?” Past 7, the extra points are just noise on a phone screen.

Add a follow-up question for low ratings

A low rating is only useful if you learn why. Notion forms can show a follow-up based on a multiple choice answer, but conditional logic needs the Business or Enterprise plan. Your rating is multiple choice, so “1 - Poor” and “2 - Fair” can lead to a “What went wrong?” text question.

On Free or Plus, ask everyone one optional open question instead. The guide to conditional logic in Notion forms covers the rules and plan limits.

Common mistakes with Notion form ratings

Four mistakes break a Notion rating setup:

Options out of order. Select options display in the order you added them. Reorder them in the property settings so 1 sits at the top or bottom, never the middle.
Labels without numbers. toNumber needs the digit first.
Renaming an option later. Existing rows keep the old label, so old and new answers split into two groups. Settle the labels before you share the form.
Dropdown instead of list. It hides the scale behind an extra click.

A form tool with a real rating question

If you collect ratings often, the select workaround gets repetitive. nDBForms has rating and scale among its 17 question types, maps each one to a matching Notion property, and writes every response as a new row in your database. Respondents don’t need a Notion account.

The catch: it’s another tool to connect, and the Free plan caps you at 3 forms and 100 responses a month. If you run one feedback form a quarter, skip it and use the native workaround.

For full feedback setups, see the feedback survey template, the NPS survey guide, and the full list of native form limits.

FAQ

Does Notion have a rating question type in forms?

No. Notion form questions follow the property type of the database, and there is no rating or scale property. You build the rating from a select property with numbered options.

How do I average ratings from a Notion form?

Add a formula property with toNumber(prop(“Rating”)) next to the select. Because each option label starts with its number, the formula returns that number, and the column calculation can show the average.

Can I show stars instead of numbers?

Yes, in the database. A formula that repeats a star emoji as many times as the score shows stars on each row. The form itself still shows the option labels you wrote.

Should a rating scale have 5 points or more?

Five points is the common default and easy to answer. Research is split on whether an odd scale with a neutral middle or an even scale without one is better, so pick based on whether you want to allow a neutral answer.

How do I add a rating scale question to a Notion form?